Down memory lane : Gifts and Photographs
I have had this carton for years(an old Bata shoe box...as sturdy as the pair of shoes that didn't ever wear off despite the years...I threw them because I was bored of them). And today, after a long time, I felt an overwhelming urge to have a look at its contents.
Sigh! It brings back such nice memories. I found my own little blue bangle( one and a half inch in diameter) which used to be one of my favorites. I used to wear it all the time and when I lost one of the pair in a wedding, I was hearbroken...I must have been 5 or 6. Its just a small thing, but it brings such vivid memories. I remember a little friend, Vimal, telling me that it didn't go with the red frock...but who cares! I liked them. It brought memories of the place in Mysore from where Ajji had bought them for me. It brought memories of Ajji herself and Vimal. Both Ajji and Vimal are now no more, but somehow, this bangle brought them closer. It brought memories of those narrow streets in Mysore where I played as a child. I spent my summer holidays there. I would invariably fracture a hand or a leg and land up in Mysore and there I was, getting the attention and care of everyone in the family...three uncles an aunt, a grandmother. What more could a child want?
Little things meant so much then. Now I'm hardly connected with that younger self. Yes, I seem to have changed. But nothing can change me so much that I'd look at this carton and feel nothing.
The warmth of photographs in sepia, the nostalgia...aah!. Why does it seem like each of these people was better then? May be its just this reassuarance that there was indeed a time when things were much better than they are now. And that reassuarance brings a longing for the past.
People grow older and often more insensitive to their pasts. Thats the way it is. But I hope(rather irrationally) that I dont ever let go of these little memories. They seem to form me ... they shape my identity.
But soon, the mind wanders off, extrapolating into the future. Wonder how these people will be in future...and that brings hope. Maybe, there will come times when photographs from forthcoming events will be added to these albums, and on a day like this some years ahead, I will be looking at them with the same longing as I do now.
So here I am flipping these pages over and over again as each of these articles/photographs/gifts re-establish lost neural connections and let me relive the past.
Each one tells a story. Each one brings some longing.
posted by Deepthi @ 8:09 AM
12 Comments:
I liked the post, the same thing happen when I go to my village and when I look at my old books. The school brings me such things in my life. Oneday we also like that!
So sweet :)
Thanks!
Well written- touchy :)
Hey may be sorta irelevant, but these days I often wonder about the ontological status of memories...
Are 'past' and 'future' as real as the present?
Yet to form my ideas on this properly (as for a gazillion other things :( )
thanks!
t ontological status of memories is indeed debatable...but given, causality, one has to admit that memories do correspond to real events.How else can i make sense of the present that i'm experiencing, if not in connection with the past events that led to it? reality of memories, this way becomes more of a conceptual necessity, definitely not empirically verifiable truth.
But must say: awesome q!
Think of the role of memory in our thinking-scientific or otherwise...we cant proceed without accepting memory as a valid means of kn. !
the above said, this bit of writing was in no way meant to b philosophical in nature! it had NOTHING to do with philosophy or any such crap...it need not b understood in the light of any philosophical reasoning :)
Darn causality!!
But even given causality, do real things (present) need to have real causes (past) only?? :P :P
And did u use 'philosophy' and 'crap' in the same sentence? Now, that's a mature philosopher in the making!! ;)
darn causality???...hehe y do u hate it?(is there a cause for t hatred?;) ) Do real effects need to have real causes??? perplexing q!if we say no they dont,then how can qs like 'what happens at t interface betn reality n non-reality?' be answered?
reminds me of the hungry cat we were talking of while reading Problems of Philosophy
Do cats REALLY get hungry...LOL!..such a profound philosophical q!!!(well, now u c y 'philosophy' and 'crap' can b used in t same sent?)
but yes, many times philosophical qs seem like mere linguistic circus...n when such realisations strike...i feel like pulling my hair apart..(i should do SOMETHING b4 my scalp begins to show..heck! i shud do something!)
Nah, what I'm saying is past was real. Past is not real.
(Now I realllly see how one can use 'philosophy and 'crap' in the same sentence :D )
When an event is over, the only proof that it happened is the memory of it. How reliable this is, is the question.
In the present, dream and reality converge coz what is, simply is. Even doing away with objectivity, it is for you, irrespective of what others say.
But with regard to past, its not "out there" for you to assign it a status of reality (Assumption: we agree on the common sensical notion of reality which is that it must be open to sensory investigation)-so; what if an event you remember was just a dream even to you?
So in the hungry cat case, I'm saying that of course cats really do get hungry, but did they get hungry? We dont know! (Yeah, this is sooooo hilarious :)) )
For example, you come to my house once and go back. You now remember how to get there and how it looks.
But once you have left the house, what guarantee do you have, that you really know how it looks? You could be sure about it when you were there, but how can you be sure about it now? You had probably dreamt of my house!
So everytime, you should keep running to my house to look at it and confirm your supposed dream :P :D
But eeeks- everytime, the dream is infact confirmed :(
So everytime the mangalam of my sermons is, "Reality continues to ruin my life"! :( :(
Wow man-have I ever talked such unadultrated nonsense before? :D
And this should have been an email! One-its longer than a normal essay, and two-look at me- so boldly publishing such atrociously crazy ideas in public-hehehe...
Moral: Reality may not be a temporal continuum.
(Doesn't that sound fundoo hehe :P )
Basically its just about being skeptical about the reality of things that you dont get sensory inputs of.
So here I am- a "past agnostic". (Doesn't mean I was agnostic in the past; it means I am agnostic about the past) :D
Wow! that was some philosophising! but fundamental q: what t heck IS reality...i thought a necessary condition for something to be real is its temporal continuity.
ie, isnt reality defined by its spatio-temporal continuity?..or am i talking of Absolute reality, which i guess is diff frm reality...(wat kinda phil student am i???)
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